Screw the quotes about what information it goes through. The bottom line is the cheat flags that it looks for and sends back. Here's the million dollar question for almost every application that gets flagged as having 'spyware'**
Do you want to play a fair game and a have a good time, or will tin foil hats get the best of you because you feel like you have big secrets to hide from the world?
** Yes, I realize that a number of those claims can be well founed, but a lot of it is just paranoia.
...I want to know how Opera's mobile browser will change. For desktop browsers, a good chunk of space is devoted to error correction (rendering in quirks mode, trying to figure out improper nesting...The list goes on, yet people still do it.)
But with a strict set of standards enforced, you don't need as much error correction, and I applaud that because cell phones are already limited on memory as is. I want to know if this will give phone web-browser makers like Opera more room to add features or just streamline the browser itself.
which Steve Ballmer had already admitted to having stagnated (.Net, not himself [though both are true ^_^]).
I'm not saying they don't create anything, and in fact I'm sure they have created a few things that are quite grand, but the majority of their successes have come from immitation rather than innovation. I'm not a complete OSS/GNU/Linux/Mac/anti-MS zealot, regardless, the fact remains that immitation is the sincerest form of flattery and competition. Microsoft has always been a demi-god of competition in this right for good or ill.
has become? Has always been. I'm honestly not trolling, but Microsoft is not smart in the innovative sense as much as they are at keeping an eye out for a good thing. Say what you want about whether or not MS will rape and pillage that good thing for the almighty dollar, but when they see something work, they know how to exploit that with their marketing to be 'good enough' to come out on top. At least, more often than not. Another great example is that they just joined Yahoo! with the Open Content Alliance, now that almost everyone is poo-pooing Google Print.
To address your second point, I have to wonder if this could actually help funding. "Well I wasn't going to pay for a moving camera that would die in three months, but two years on the other hand..." Then the problem could go back to your first point: it could cut off funding if the next mission doesn't live up to expectations.
Just remember, for every person that agrees with you, there are another two that would tell you that one of the several rising-star countries could take our place and we would become like China was a few decades ago. Do not assume that we are so important that the lights will turn off around the world if we become defunct: pride before the fall. George Bush has, by himself, already given enough of the UN reason to doubt our future. I'm not forecasting our nation's demise anytime soon, but I would rather plan ahead than assume smooth sailing.
Unfortunately, I fear that educating the american public about this issue would garner a response that would only foster the opinions held by other nations for supporting a division of control. Let the news give a little "now you know..." segment before hand, and everyone would be screaming that 'We made it, we should keep it!' which doesn't really make us look any better the rest of the world.
Please don't correct me with a torch because I honestly don't know where I stand on the issue. I see downsides to dividing control, but I can also conceive of the problems if america would ever be reduced to a police state in the future. Our (US) government is not perpetual, and any system can fall. If it did, the rest of the world wouldn't want the internet governed by whatever restriction could come about in such a case.
The masses are sadly uninformed about a lot of issues that are important to them because a lot of people lack the underlying knowledge about the subject to make a solid argument.
I honestly mean no offense by this, but I found this post a whee-bit self absorbed.
Quick lesson in history: You joined this site at point without knowing all the articles posted before that moment. Present moment: It still happens.
There's an old saying that one person's garbage is someone else's treasure. The same goes for news: You may not care about it, but for some reason, someone else probably will.
The reason most people may as well be posting tutorials on avoiding the feds is because a lot of p2p downloaders are convinced (possibly rightly so) that the (MP|RI)AA is killing creativity and price gouging so that must mean we're entitled to steal (probably not, if you're pissed at the industry, boycot it).
What I can sympathize with this case is that if lawyers can find a way to 'prove' that BT endorsed piracy at one point, it could face a very real threat of being shut down. I use Linux and have tried several distros, but even with a DSL line that's a quarter of a mile from the provider, BT is my friend. I love using it to get new distros, and large packages that can't be easily downloaded otherwise. It's a shame that it has become the medium of choice for piracy, but there are plenty of people who don't want to see bittorrent shut down for very legitimate reasons.
Not just that, it's going to provoke lawyers to find ways around the precedent set by the Sony/Betamax case. It is already established (in the United States) that a technology cannot be outlawed simply because it allows someone the capability to commit piracy. However, with the recent Grokster ruling (which the US paid close attention to), you can be shut down if you grant the ability and endorse it.
Now they're going to try to take that old site post by Bram Cohen (which was a satire of the cypherpunk manifesto), and try to find a way to 'prove' that he once endorsed piracy. If they can manage to pull that off, we're all in for a world of hurt.
Notice my closing tag. I was only joking about it because it still seems like a waste of time with all that's going on in the White House, even if one person only wasted two minutes on it. Not every comment on slashdot is intended to be a seething rant session. Just 83% percent of them. ^_^
Even still, I can hardly believe that they're actually wasting their efforts on The Onion when the administration has more than enough problems to handle at the current moment. I can just imagine this at Harriet Miers' congressional review:
Congresman: How is that you could come to this hearing so unprepared?:: Bush walks in:: Bush: It had recently come our attention that a terrorist publication was attempting to use the official White House seal to decieve the American public and cause panic and chaos in the nation. This evil had to be stopped at all costs!
But there is life after death. A lot of companies that produce great ideas usually lack the (marketing|distribution) strength of the giants in a field. If they get bought out by Microsoft: god help us all, we just lost something great. However, if somebody more concerned with making a good product picks it up, you may see that project resurrected with tech support and better features/integration in a year or two.
On a serious note, while no search engine should just give away their secrets (if they want to stay popular anyway), I think the mystique that is "Page Rank" (spooky echo) has sort of made Google semi-responsible for a lot of the spam on the net. Do you see anyone making stupid pages (and words) like slogs to exploit Yahoo's results? How about MSN?
Heck, I'm a web developer for a company getting regular complaints that my efforts aren't giving the company site a better PR, and I have to explain that it could take months for any differences to manifest. In this kind of environment, I can easily conceive self-proclaimed SEO 'experts' touting to optimize a site for Google, get paid and leave. When no results show up in 4-6 months "I'm sorry, Google just announced that they changed their page rank system to combat spam pages and links. (Ha ha, you paid me to do something that becomes irrelevant when Google updates their server/engine)"
The struggle to be king of the PR mountain has brought about many corrupt things. Silly words that belong in a children's book being pretty low in that pile.
Well considering that he's under review for ethics violations by the Bar Association (as far as I know at the moment), if he gets his license taken away, that will sorely reduce his credability. Believe me, I've thought about that, but there's another weapon we have for our benefit (note my metaphor: gamers are so violent ^_^): The industry is getting smarter. Good ol' Jackie T may yell loud enough to get on CNN and spout complete nonsense, but game companies are getting some muscle when it comes to publicly refuting people like him.
I understand the value of this, but my point is that if his misuse of the word 'community'. The community is obviously not doing enough (in his eyes) so the government has to step in. When it comes to raising children, there is a big difference between community values and legislation (more often than not).
Well to clarify things a little better, libraries are given books on the basis that they can be read either in the library itself or on loan, but they are not to be copied in their entirety. Any librarian doing thier job would stop someone from using the copier to replicate an entire book. Copiers are provided, usually as a service for educational, research purposes, and they're to be used to copy a few pages rather than a whole chapter. Even if someone were able to copy an entire book in the library or at home, the point behind these lawsuits is that Google is doing all of that work for us. Honestly, how many books can you scan by yourself in one day?
While it is possible to check out a book and scan it in overnight, most people (even with OCR-enabled scanners) can't reliably commit any kind of real infringment without sacrificing more time than it was worth (OCR still takes a lot of checking and correctig). Here's Google doing all the dirty work for us, and all we have to do is spread their evil seed, so to speak.
The issue isn't so simple. How many copies can you make in an hour? Hell, how many copies can you make on a library copier in a day? Take that number and you could distribute an exponentially greater number of copies digitally. God forbid you torrent share a book.
The level to which the copying can be taken and purposely distributed without consent is vastly different when it becomes digital.
First of all: no analogy is perfectly suited for all fields.
Secondly, I even mentioned that 'elite' may not have been the best word to use. Ferrari is elite to the point that many people could never dream of affording one without even considering maintainence costs. Apple, on the other hand, is not a Cray super computer or VoodooPC. They're pricey, but not unaffordable to everyone. With the company making products that are sold on more than just the desktop/laptop market, they have more products that are affordable and get more press than Microsoft because their image makes them 'shine' in the press because Microsoft doesn't really have a consistent image to match.
How many Ferraris do you see in a day? How many iPods (of any kind). It's not the same market, but even apples and oranges have more in common than apples and rambutans. I suppose Apple could be considered something more like VW compared to Ford/GM/Chrysler. Who gets better press? VW, and similarly, so does Apple; they're seen by many as 'trendier'.
I see your point, but keep in mind that when OO.o has been a major factor in companies switching from Windows systems to Linux ones.
"What will happen to all our Word documents, and spreadsheets, oh! oh! and what about PowerPoint?" Say it with me together now: OpenOffice!
Yes, MSOffice compatibility has become a nearly ubiquitous feature by now, but not too many offices switch from Windows to use Joe. So the strength it has given to the Linux community as an alternative to 'get everyday tasks done' can't be stated enough. Hence, this appears in the Linux section of Slashdot.
This public service annoucement was brought to you by penguins, and a OSS/Linux advocate.
The more that I've found out about Jackie T, the more I think he's not some self-convinced hero (Don Quixote with aggression issues), but simply power-mad. He starves for strength and control, but now I'd prefer that he stays in the public light and insane. As Mike (Gabe) said on the PA site, it's better to have some raving clown trying to get rid of games as opposed to someone actually intelligent that could get somewhere.
Let him keep his fantasies because he'll keep going even if he gets disbarred (I guess that's how you would say it, I don't know), but there will always be more to take his place. Let's keep this monkey here so we can laugh at his nonsense instead of worry about his results.
Very true, but there's a little more to it than that. Apple has always been a sort of 'elite' kind of computer market. Maybe that's too strong of a word to use, but nobody can deny that Apple has always catered to having some form of a unique company identity which attracts that unique user-base. Of course, now that the unique and possibly 'hip computer company' is making new things, reporting it is great press for almost anybody (even if they have the technical acumen of Jack Thompson).
Slashdot Mirror
Whatever happened to the good ol' days of Diablo 1 online when I had to use a hack for the sole purpose of disabling everyone else's hacks around me?
Screw the quotes about what information it goes through. The bottom line is the cheat flags that it looks for and sends back. Here's the million dollar question for almost every application that gets flagged as having 'spyware'**
Do you want to play a fair game and a have a good time, or will tin foil hats get the best of you because you feel like you have big secrets to hide from the world?
** Yes, I realize that a number of those claims can be well founed, but a lot of it is just paranoia.
You obviously can't spell phishing. You forget that SCO is trying to pass themselves off to the courts as a reasonable group.
</toungeincheek>
...I want to know how Opera's mobile browser will change. For desktop browsers, a good chunk of space is devoted to error correction (rendering in quirks mode, trying to figure out improper nesting...The list goes on, yet people still do it.)
But with a strict set of standards enforced, you don't need as much error correction, and I applaud that because cell phones are already limited on memory as is. I want to know if this will give phone web-browser makers like Opera more room to add features or just streamline the browser itself.
You're forgetting the two key features that work in tandem, thus insuring Microsoft's success in a good deal of previous ventures:
Embedded in Windows: you betcha!
Good enough: yeah...it takes too much effort to do otherwise.
The only real uncertainty is how well they can pull this off on the internet; a place which has proven to be a difficult area for MS in many ways.
which Steve Ballmer had already admitted to having stagnated (.Net, not himself [though both are true ^_^]).
I'm not saying they don't create anything, and in fact I'm sure they have created a few things that are quite grand, but the majority of their successes have come from immitation rather than innovation. I'm not a complete OSS/GNU/Linux/Mac/anti-MS zealot, regardless, the fact remains that immitation is the sincerest form of flattery and competition. Microsoft has always been a demi-god of competition in this right for good or ill.
has become? Has always been. I'm honestly not trolling, but Microsoft is not smart in the innovative sense as much as they are at keeping an eye out for a good thing. Say what you want about whether or not MS will rape and pillage that good thing for the almighty dollar, but when they see something work, they know how to exploit that with their marketing to be 'good enough' to come out on top. At least, more often than not. Another great example is that they just joined Yahoo! with the Open Content Alliance, now that almost everyone is poo-pooing Google Print.
To address your second point, I have to wonder if this could actually help funding. "Well I wasn't going to pay for a moving camera that would die in three months, but two years on the other hand..." Then the problem could go back to your first point: it could cut off funding if the next mission doesn't live up to expectations.
Just remember, for every person that agrees with you, there are another two that would tell you that one of the several rising-star countries could take our place and we would become like China was a few decades ago. Do not assume that we are so important that the lights will turn off around the world if we become defunct: pride before the fall. George Bush has, by himself, already given enough of the UN reason to doubt our future. I'm not forecasting our nation's demise anytime soon, but I would rather plan ahead than assume smooth sailing.
Unfortunately, I fear that educating the american public about this issue would garner a response that would only foster the opinions held by other nations for supporting a division of control. Let the news give a little "now you know..." segment before hand, and everyone would be screaming that 'We made it, we should keep it!' which doesn't really make us look any better the rest of the world.
Please don't correct me with a torch because I honestly don't know where I stand on the issue. I see downsides to dividing control, but I can also conceive of the problems if america would ever be reduced to a police state in the future. Our (US) government is not perpetual, and any system can fall. If it did, the rest of the world wouldn't want the internet governed by whatever restriction could come about in such a case.
The masses are sadly uninformed about a lot of issues that are important to them because a lot of people lack the underlying knowledge about the subject to make a solid argument.
I honestly mean no offense by this, but I found this post a whee-bit self absorbed.
Quick lesson in history: You joined this site at point without knowing all the articles posted before that moment.
Present moment: It still happens.
There's an old saying that one person's garbage is someone else's treasure. The same goes for news: You may not care about it, but for some reason, someone else probably will.
The reason most people may as well be posting tutorials on avoiding the feds is because a lot of p2p downloaders are convinced (possibly rightly so) that the (MP|RI)AA is killing creativity and price gouging so that must mean we're entitled to steal (probably not, if you're pissed at the industry, boycot it).
What I can sympathize with this case is that if lawyers can find a way to 'prove' that BT endorsed piracy at one point, it could face a very real threat of being shut down. I use Linux and have tried several distros, but even with a DSL line that's a quarter of a mile from the provider, BT is my friend. I love using it to get new distros, and large packages that can't be easily downloaded otherwise. It's a shame that it has become the medium of choice for piracy, but there are plenty of people who don't want to see bittorrent shut down for very legitimate reasons.
Not just that, it's going to provoke lawyers to find ways around the precedent set by the Sony/Betamax case. It is already established (in the United States) that a technology cannot be outlawed simply because it allows someone the capability to commit piracy. However, with the recent Grokster ruling (which the US paid close attention to), you can be shut down if you grant the ability and endorse it.
Now they're going to try to take that old site post by Bram Cohen (which was a satire of the cypherpunk manifesto), and try to find a way to 'prove' that he once endorsed piracy. If they can manage to pull that off, we're all in for a world of hurt.
Notice my closing tag. I was only joking about it because it still seems like a waste of time with all that's going on in the White House, even if one person only wasted two minutes on it. Not every comment on slashdot is intended to be a seething rant session. Just 83% percent of them. ^_^
Even still, I can hardly believe that they're actually wasting their efforts on The Onion when the administration has more than enough problems to handle at the current moment. I can just imagine this at Harriet Miers' congressional review:
:: Bush walks in ::
Congresman: How is that you could come to this hearing so unprepared?
Bush: It had recently come our attention that a terrorist publication was attempting to use the official White House seal to decieve the American public and cause panic and chaos in the nation. This evil had to be stopped at all costs!
</toungeincheek>
But there is life after death. A lot of companies that produce great ideas usually lack the (marketing|distribution) strength of the giants in a field. If they get bought out by Microsoft: god help us all, we just lost something great. However, if somebody more concerned with making a good product picks it up, you may see that project resurrected with tech support and better features/integration in a year or two.
On a serious note, while no search engine should just give away their secrets (if they want to stay popular anyway), I think the mystique that is "Page Rank" (spooky echo) has sort of made Google semi-responsible for a lot of the spam on the net. Do you see anyone making stupid pages (and words) like slogs to exploit Yahoo's results? How about MSN?
Heck, I'm a web developer for a company getting regular complaints that my efforts aren't giving the company site a better PR, and I have to explain that it could take months for any differences to manifest. In this kind of environment, I can easily conceive self-proclaimed SEO 'experts' touting to optimize a site for Google, get paid and leave. When no results show up in 4-6 months "I'm sorry, Google just announced that they changed their page rank system to combat spam pages and links. (Ha ha, you paid me to do something that becomes irrelevant when Google updates their server/engine)"
The struggle to be king of the PR mountain has brought about many corrupt things. Silly words that belong in a children's book being pretty low in that pile.
Well considering that he's under review for ethics violations by the Bar Association (as far as I know at the moment), if he gets his license taken away, that will sorely reduce his credability. Believe me, I've thought about that, but there's another weapon we have for our benefit (note my metaphor: gamers are so violent ^_^): The industry is getting smarter. Good ol' Jackie T may yell loud enough to get on CNN and spout complete nonsense, but game companies are getting some muscle when it comes to publicly refuting people like him.
I understand the value of this, but my point is that if his misuse of the word 'community'. The community is obviously not doing enough (in his eyes) so the government has to step in. When it comes to raising children, there is a big difference between community values and legislation (more often than not).
Well to clarify things a little better, libraries are given books on the basis that they can be read either in the library itself or on loan, but they are not to be copied in their entirety. Any librarian doing thier job would stop someone from using the copier to replicate an entire book. Copiers are provided, usually as a service for educational, research purposes, and they're to be used to copy a few pages rather than a whole chapter. Even if someone were able to copy an entire book in the library or at home, the point behind these lawsuits is that Google is doing all of that work for us. Honestly, how many books can you scan by yourself in one day?
While it is possible to check out a book and scan it in overnight, most people (even with OCR-enabled scanners) can't reliably commit any kind of real infringment without sacrificing more time than it was worth (OCR still takes a lot of checking and correctig). Here's Google doing all the dirty work for us, and all we have to do is spread their evil seed, so to speak.
The issue isn't so simple. How many copies can you make in an hour? Hell, how many copies can you make on a library copier in a day? Take that number and you could distribute an exponentially greater number of copies digitally. God forbid you torrent share a book.
The level to which the copying can be taken and purposely distributed without consent is vastly different when it becomes digital.
First of all: no analogy is perfectly suited for all fields.
Secondly, I even mentioned that 'elite' may not have been the best word to use. Ferrari is elite to the point that many people could never dream of affording one without even considering maintainence costs. Apple, on the other hand, is not a Cray super computer or VoodooPC. They're pricey, but not unaffordable to everyone. With the company making products that are sold on more than just the desktop/laptop market, they have more products that are affordable and get more press than Microsoft because their image makes them 'shine' in the press because Microsoft doesn't really have a consistent image to match.
How many Ferraris do you see in a day? How many iPods (of any kind). It's not the same market, but even apples and oranges have more in common than apples and rambutans. I suppose Apple could be considered something more like VW compared to Ford/GM/Chrysler. Who gets better press? VW, and similarly, so does Apple; they're seen by many as 'trendier'.
I see your point, but keep in mind that when OO.o has been a major factor in companies switching from Windows systems to Linux ones.
"What will happen to all our Word documents, and spreadsheets, oh! oh! and what about PowerPoint?"
Say it with me together now: OpenOffice!
Yes, MSOffice compatibility has become a nearly ubiquitous feature by now, but not too many offices switch from Windows to use Joe. So the strength it has given to the Linux community as an alternative to 'get everyday tasks done' can't be stated enough. Hence, this appears in the Linux section of Slashdot.
This public service annoucement was brought to you by penguins, and a OSS/Linux advocate.
The more that I've found out about Jackie T, the more I think he's not some self-convinced hero (Don Quixote with aggression issues), but simply power-mad. He starves for strength and control, but now I'd prefer that he stays in the public light and insane. As Mike (Gabe) said on the PA site, it's better to have some raving clown trying to get rid of games as opposed to someone actually intelligent that could get somewhere.
Let him keep his fantasies because he'll keep going even if he gets disbarred (I guess that's how you would say it, I don't know), but there will always be more to take his place. Let's keep this monkey here so we can laugh at his nonsense instead of worry about his results.
Very true, but there's a little more to it than that. Apple has always been a sort of 'elite' kind of computer market. Maybe that's too strong of a word to use, but nobody can deny that Apple has always catered to having some form of a unique company identity which attracts that unique user-base. Of course, now that the unique and possibly 'hip computer company' is making new things, reporting it is great press for almost anybody (even if they have the technical acumen of Jack Thompson).